YouTube is cracking down on people who buy fake video views

It seems that YouTube is cracking down on those who buy fake views for their videos.

Paying for views has definitely become a problem for the website and YouTube has declared that they will be keeping a closer eye on things, reducing views in some cases, and possibly deleting videos for multiple offenses.

It’s become common and easy for people to go websites that offer vies for money. With one quick Google search I was able to find http://www.500views.com, which is a site that offers 500 views for $5 and even 1 million views for a little over three grand. YouTube is definitely not happy about it.

“YouTube isn’t just a place for videos, it’s a place for meaningful human interaction. Whether it’s views, likes, or comments, these interactions both represent and inform how creators connect with their audience. That’s why we take the accuracy of these interactions very seriously,” said Philip Pfeiffenberger, a software engineer at Google, in a blog post.

“When some bad actors try to game the system by artificially inflating view counts, they’re not just misleading fans about the popularity of a video, they’re undermining one of YouTube’s most important and unique qualities”

“As part of our long-standing effort to keep YouTube authentic and full of meaningful interactions, we’ve begun periodically auditing the views a video has received,” he added. “While in the past we would scan views for spam immediately after they occurred, starting today we will periodically validate the video’s view count, removing fraudulent views as new evidence comes to light.”

Other companies have had problems with this as well. Yelp, the famous review service, has had continuing difficulties involving owners of businesses trying to post their own, of course positive, reviews.

“As the influence of online media and consumer reviews continues to grow, it is vital that companies operating in this arena work to mitigate the risk of the bad actors who try to game the system and mislead consumers,” Elliot Adams, a Yelp spokesperson. “At Yelp we have been working on our recommendation software since our inception in 2004, which helps recommend only the most useful, relevant and reliable review content.

“We even go one step further and carry out sting operations on businesses looking to pay for positive reviews,” he added, “and once caught red handed, we clearly make this information available to consumers looking to patronise these businesses with a banner on their business page, outing their shady business practices and recommending that they may want to take their business elsewhere.”